Game Settings

When starting a new game, you have to choose from a couple of settings.

Game mode
Your first choice is the selection of the game mode: Survival or No Sweat. The two are kind of different difficulty settings, but actually just different presets of the more detailed game settings you will be able to perform later.

Survival
''Stay on your toes and one step ahead of this unforgiving world. One slip up could bring your colony crashing down.

Survival is the standard game mode. Most numbers that you will find in documentations like this wiki will refer to this mode, as all settings are on their "Default" level here.

No Sweat
''When disaster strikes (and it inevitably will), take a deep breath and stay calm. You have ample time to find a solution.

No Sweat is an easier game mode preset that adjusts a couple of parameters (for a description of these settings, see below):
 * Disease: Germ Resistant
 * Morale: Chill
 * Hunger: Fasting
 * Stress: Chipper

However, all other game mechanics are not affected. In particular, the No Sweat mode does not reduce oxygen requirements, it does not change any temperature effects, it does not modify the material input/output ratios of buildings, and it does not affect the world generation. So No Sweat mode makes it easier to survive, as your duplicants are much more robust, but it does not move away the need to overcome the various challenges the game provides.

Choose a Destination
In the second selection screen, the asteroid and the world seed can be selected, and the World Traits for that selection are shown.

A button allows you to enter the Game Settings menu. The values from your game mode selection (Survival or No Sweat) will be pre-selected.

Game Settings
The player can choose to define several parameters on their own here.

The first two settings are, again, the asteroid and the world seed selection. However, asteroid types that are defined by mods will be available for selection here as well, rather than just the standard asteroids.

The four following settings will adjust the levels of disease, hunger, morale and stress:
 * Disease: Affects Duplicants' chances of contracting a disease after germ exposure
 * Total Immunity: Like diplomatic immunity, but without the diplomacy. These Duplicants will never get sick.
 * Germ Resistant: These Duplicants have a reduced chance of contracting diseases from germ exposure.
 * Default
 * Germ Susceptible: These Duplicants have an increased chance of contracting diseases from germ exposure.
 * Outbreak Prone: The whole colony will be ravaged by plague if a Duplicant so much as sneezes funny.
 * Morale: Adjusts the minimum morale Duplicants must maintain to avoid gaining stress
 * Totally Blasé: These Duplicants have zero standards and will never gain stress, regardless of their morale.
 * Chill: Duplicants require lower morale than usual to fend off stress.
 * Default
 * A Bit Persnickety: Duplicants require higher morale than usual to fend off stress.
 * Draconian: The finest of the finest can barely keep up with these Duplicants' stringent demands.
 * Hunger: Affects how quickly Duplicants burn calories and become hungry
 * Tummyless: These Duplicants were printed without tummies and need no food at all.
 * Duplicants don't need to eat at all
 * Fasting: Duplicants burn calories slowly and get by with fewer meals.
 * Each Duplicant needs 500 kcal per cycle to survive
 * Default
 * Each Duplicant needs 1000 kcal per cycle to survive
 * Rumbly Tummies: Duplicants burn calories quickly and require more feeding than usual.
 * Each Duplicant needs 1500 kcal per cycle to survive
 * Ravenous: Your Duplicants are on a see-food diet... They see food and they eat it.
 * Each Duplicant needs 2000 kcal per cycle to survive
 * Stress: Affects how quickly Duplicant stress rises
 * Cloud Nine: A strong emotional support system makes these Duplicants impervious to all stress.
 * Duplicants won't gain any Stress
 * Chipper: Duplicants gain stress slower than usual.
 * -10% Stress per cycle
 * Default
 * No Stress modifier
 * Glum: Duplicants gain stress more quickly than usual.
 * +10% Stress per cycle
 * Frankly Depressing: These Duplicants were never taught coping mechanisms... they're devastated by stress as a result.
 * +20% Stress per cycle

The three checkboxes in the end determine whether a 100% stress level causes stress reactions or not, whether the Printing Pod prints care packages or only duplicants, and whether sandbox mode is enabled.

Sandbox Mode
Besides the game mode settings, you can also enable the sandbox mode. If a game is started with the sandbox mode enabled, an additional button "Sandbox mode" appears in the UI.

When the sandbox mode is activated, you can freely play around with almost no restrictions: All research items are unlocked, all buildings can be placed immediately and without any resource consumption, solids can be destroyed or created, gasses can be filled, duplicants, critters, plants and various objects can be spawned, and so on.

Sandbox mode can be deactivated again to continue the normal game. This resets the state of all research to the point where the sandbox mode was activated, but keeps all modifications done to the world during sandbox mode.

Once the sandbox mode was activated, no achievements can be earned any more.

Duplicant selection
The last dialog screen before the actual game starts allows you to choose your three starting duplicants. You can freely re-roll each candidate until you see one that's suitable.

You can also give your colony a name here.

Once you finish this step, the actual game starts.